553 PREFACE COLERIDGE'S Biographia Literaria is a work of which a part is greater than the whole. It is fragmentary and discontinuous -a series of beginnings, with a conclusion that fits none of them. The separate presentation of its better portions is therefore an act of kindness to many readers, and especially to students, who (being young) dutifully endeavour to read the whole book, and find themselves dismayed, if not defeated, by the mass of imported metaphysic that Coleridge proudly dumped into the middle. This obstacle has been removed and the book is left as, indeed, it is usually read, not merely by pupils under direction, but by older persons whom habit has made wise in omission. Certainly the best of Biographia is to be got by a reading of its best part first. The sequence of chapters beginning abruptly at XIV and ending just as suddenly at XXII is a detachable and delightful little treatise, which, because it examines rigorously, though reverently, poems now famous and familiar, is the best introduction English readers can have to the principles of philosophical criticism-that is, to the way of intelligent enjoymentand it is therefore offered here, with the first four chapters as preface, to all who care to enjoy a poet's interpretation of poetry unclouded by the obscurity of yesterday's philosophy. The nature of the omitted portion is indicated in the first Appendix, which contains, as well, a full quotation of the passages with any personal interest. The book thus abbreviated is meant, not as a substitute for the whole work, but as an introduction to it. It is a first reading in Coleridge's prose.. Associated with the Wordsworth chapters of Biographia Literaria are the Wordsworth essays on poetry out of which the book arose and without which it might never have been written. 101 The text is mainly that of the second edition (see p. 246); but Coleridge's characteristic italics and capitals, normalised by the editors of 1847, have been restored. Can we not hear in them the emphasis of our philosopher's declamation in those famous. monologues that gave pleasure to some, pain to others, and astonishment to all? Upon the debated subject of annotation the only remark needed is that persons who want notes may find some of these helpful and that persons who don't may treat them as not existing. Without them (and even with them) a volume that gives the best of Coleridge's imaginative criticism-the criticism that, as Pater says, is itself a kind of creation-should have its uses for many sorts of readers. 31 December, 1919. GEORGE SAMPSON. Every line has been produced by me with labor pangs. I abandon poetry altogether. I leave the higher and deeper kinds to Wordsworth, the delightful, popular, and simply dignified to Southey, and reserve for myself the honourable attempt to make others feel and understand their writings, as they deserve to be felt and understood. S. T. C. (From a Letter, c. i8oo.) |